Electrical Conductivity of Noble Gas Plasmas in the Warm Dense Matter Regime

The electrical conductivity of noble gas plasmas is investigated by using the relaxation‐time approximation in the density range 10 –5 –10 g cm –3 and temperature range 10 4 –10 5 K. The electrical conductivity calculated shows reasonable consistency with shock wave experiments and theoretical simulations at above 2 × 10 4 K where the Coulomb interaction dominates. A nonmetal to metal transition in helium plasma is predicted at 2.4 g cm –3 and shown reasonable agreement with the most recent shock wave experiment (above 1.9 g cm –3 ). Furthermore, the insulator‐metal transition densities of all the noble gas plasmas are predicted and compared with available results (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)